VOY: “Scorpion: Part 1 & 2”

Date: November 9, 2020

Season 3, Episode 26 and Season 4, Episode 1

Musical Accompaniment: random stuff on YouTube

Interstellar News: My brain is having a hard time today.

TL;DR: One of Voyager‘s probes was destroyed by the Borg. They head for a “safe” passage and start getting ready for an eventual attack. Kes is having telepathic visions and 15 Borg cubes arrive, only to pass them by with only a scan. The cubes are eventually decimated by “Species 8472” and are also the source of Kes’s visions. Kim is attacked by 8472 and the Doctor comes up with a way to heal him, which Janeway wants to weaponize and share with the Borg in order to secure safe passage through their space. Chakotay is wary of an alliance and tells Janeway about the “Scorpion and the Fox” parable, but she is beamed over and makes her case to the Borg anyway. 8472 attacks in the middle of negotiation and blows up a planet.

Janeway reaches an agreement with the Borg, she and Tuvok will work over there while Chakotay follows along on a path to the AQ. The Doctor successfully heals Kim, Kes has more visions of the aliens, and Janeway is given a single Borg to interact with named Seven of Nine. 8472 attacks again, destroying the Borg ship, but Janeway, Tuvok, and a few Borg are able to beam over to Voyager. Tuvok is okay but Janeway has some serious healing to do, so Chakotay is temporarily in charge. When Seven wants to modify the agreement, Chakotay decides to end the alliance. Seven takes over Voyager, opens a singularity to get into the 8472 dimension, and Chakotay realizes the Borg started this fight. They are able to turn the Doctor’s cure into a weapon, get back to the DQ, and avoid assimilation by severing Seven from the Collective once she tried to take over the ship.

Favorite Quote:

EMH: Commander. I must tell you. I have my doubts about this alliance. You may have convinced the Borg the nanoprobes can defeat their enemy, but a medical treatment is a long way from a weapon of war.

Chakotay: Leave that to the Captain. This situation is unpredictable so we’re going to stay at full Red Alert. Keep all information about the nanoprobes stored in your holo-matrix.

EMH: Don’t worry. I’ll delete myself at the first sign of trouble. Well, maybe not the first sign.

The EMH knowing where he stands in the pecking order.

“I just came up with it, but I think it might work.”: Part 1 is very interesting. Janeway visits the holodeck several times to swap ideas with Leonardo da Vinci (played by John Rhys-Davies) and then they gear up for a fight they might not win. Janeway and Chakotay discuss the possibilities of taking their chances with the Borg or finding a nice planet to hang out on for the rest of their lives and asking the question “But at what point is the risk too great?”. Janeway makes a super ballsy move in negotiating with the Borg, and she pulls it off too. Chakotay tries to reason with her but she’s the Captain and she’s made up her mind, damn it! Also, these aliens totally just blew up a planet and that’s awful… reminds me of something that’s happened in Star Wars, heh.

“We are Borg.”: Part 2 starts off with Janeway and Tuvok getting almost temporarily assimilated but they logic and demand their way into just speaking with one Borg, so we get to meet the new cast member who is replacing Kes (no longer in the opening credits). Seven of Nine is going to be a lot of fun, methinks, because she has more personality than the other Borg we have met. She never wavers from her mission but she interacts with the crew in an interesting way. There are two times she gives “We are Borg” as an answer. The first time it’s absolutely not an appropriate answer but the second time, when Tuvok asks how they got Voyager’s weapons inventory, it was totally a sassy and on point thing to say. It was awesome how the Doctor was able to find a way to cure Kim and then scary how quickly it was turned around and weaponized… as happens in real life sometimes. Chakotay and Janeway have a disagreement, but she doesn’t chastise him as much as I would have thought she would given the circumstances. I do love that they had a backup plan in case the Borg went assimilating, even though Seven was the only one left on board. I look forward to seeing how she interacts with the crew and re-assimilates back into human culture. As a double episode, I rate these… wait for it… 7 of nine.

Please don’t leave, you know you love my puns.

TA Out!